best of the chiefs to emulation; it will by every self-respecting chief, be regarded as stylish to have clean wide streets and shops, a telegraph and post-office, and things like that. Seeing that his elder brother, the sub-commissioner, has a line of telegraph connecting him with the district commission town, he will want a line of telegraph too. By all means let him have it ; let him have the electric light and a telephone, if he feels he wants it, and will pay for it; but don't force these things, let them come, natural like. The great thing, however, in the sub-commissioner's town is that it should be so ruled and governed that it—does not become a thing like our Coast towns now, sink—holes of moral iniquity, that stink in the nose of a respectable African—things he hates to see his sons and daughters and people go down into.
Secondly, I depend on municipal Government on the lines I have laid down for the Coast towns. The Government of these municipalities would be in the hands of the representatives of the trading firms, and the more important native traders—people, as I hold, perfectly capable of dealing with affairs, and having a community of interests.
The great difficulty in arranging any system for the government of West Africa lies not in the true difficulties this region presents, but in the fictitious difficulties that are the growth of years of mutual misunderstanding and misrepresentation. That great mass of mutual distrust, so that to-day down there white man distrusts white man and black, black man distrusts black man and white, may seem on a superficial review to be justified. But if you go deeper you will find that this distrust is the mere product of folly and ignorance, and is therefore removable.
The great practical difficulty lies in arranging a system
